


The Sleep of the Faithful

by Lionescence



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt Shiro (Voltron), M/M, Post-S6, Written before S7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 03:09:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16631774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lionescence/pseuds/Lionescence
Summary: With Shiro back in his - not his - body, the Voltron family find a pit-stop to rest and recover.Some need it more than others. Shiro makes peace with a few things, including Keith's mother.





	The Sleep of the Faithful

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arahir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arahir/gifts).



> This fic was originally inspired by [arahir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arahir/pseuds/arahir)'s [devotee](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14947848/chapters/34945553#workskin), particularly Chapter 3. I thought a lot about how tired Keith must have been, and everything that came after S6. 
> 
> Jojo, I'm so sorry: I meant for this to be your birthday gift, and of course, me being me, I am massively late thanks to bouts of not being able to write. You're an amazing person, friend, and writer, and it's a privilege to be in this fandom with you.

Thanks to Krolia, the new refugees of the Castle of Lions found themselves approaching a small Blade outpost, and only after Pidge and Hunk worked tirelessly on their cloaking system. As long as they all flew in tight formation with the Green Lion in the centre, the cloak reached far enough to hide them all. Kolivan himself was on his way to meet them at the outpost, and that gave them all the sense of security they needed. Besides, there was a lot of report back, a lot to plan for, a lot of healing to be done.

Especially for those more stubborn than most.

Krolia had observed her son from the moment they’d safely ensconced Shiro in the pod they’d brought with them, albeit padded with every blanket from every Lion and with the cover off. She’d observed how the entire journey to the outpost was the only time Kosmo and Keith were apart: if Keith was piloting, he instructed the cosmic wolf to keep watch over Shiro. The distance was all of maybe fifteen feet, but considering the pair had been joined at the hip since Kosmo was a puppy, it felt like a rip in space-time. Kosmo had whined in complaint, but did as he was asked. Every so often, Keith would make his way back to Shiro, watching him without blinking, as if utterly terrified he would disappear again.

Not once did Keith rest. He flew, he watched. Krolia knew her son was strong, but surely, by now, he had to be exhausted. There had been no time for a single breath from the moment they arrived at the Castle of Lions with Romelle till now. She’d watched him leave the Castle in the Black Lion intact, and he’d returned to her bruised and battered and with a burn across his cheek that almost matched her markings. He hadn’t spoken of what happened, at all.

The Lions broke through the atmosphere of the small planet, and then breached the cloaked perimeter of the base. They landed as one, and were immediately greeted by Blades and Rebels alike, Kolivan among them.

Upon disembarking a Blade medical team immediately took hold of Shiro’s pod, carrying it away into the base, with Keith hot on their tail.

“Keith, wait.”

Keith snapped around to Kolivan, and there should have been fire in his eyes, because no one could tell Keith to not be at Shiro’s side. No one ever had. “Kolivan, I don’t have time for this.” Unlike the last time he said those words, when he was addressing Lance, they were tired, and plaintive. He pushed his hand through his hair, and suddenly everyone could see the bruise on his jaw, the cuts on his cheekbone, and they all knew who put them there. “I can’t leave him.”

Pidge was the first to move forward into Keith’s reach, the first to take the hand that wasn’t in his hair, trying to hide that he was nursing something that hurt on the back of his head. “Keith, you’re exhausted. You’ve… you’ve been going since you came back to the Castle —”

“And you’re hurt!” Hunk said, also coming forward, halfway ready to scoop him up if he fell. “Dude, like, you’re limping, and you’re all banged up and that burn looks really —”

“I can’t leave him,” Keith said again, and there was a tremor there, and when his breath hitched his features went taut. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” He took a step forward, and that knee buckled: not enough to hit the floor, but enough for Lance to appear beside him, one hand braced on Keith’s chest, the other at his shoulder.

“No, Keith. Seriously. You need to —”

Keith could easily floor Lance, if he wanted to. Even if he didn’t, he had enough innate strength to push past anyone who got in his way. But a hand on his chest was all it took to stop him, and it was clear that if he wasn’t so exhausted, he would be in hysterics. “No. No, Lance, I _need_ to — I need to be — _Shiro_.” He tried to slip past the Blue Paladin, but his grace was gone, his strength was gone. He reached an arm out, out to where he last saw them take Shiro’s pod, but none of them were sure what it was he was seeing, anymore.

“Shiro —”

Allura was there, then, and she reached out her hand, fingertips brushing at Keith’s temple. A small flash of blue-white light, and Keith’s eyes slipped shut, a soft sound escaping his throat before his legs gave away fully. Lance caught him before he hit the floor.

“What the _hell_ —” Lance settled himself down, carefully cradling the Red Paladin in his arms. He shook him, tried to rouse him, but there was no response: just shallow breaths. “Allura! Was that really necessary?”

She knelt down with him, running a gentle hand through Keith’s tired, sweat-soaked hair. “I am sorry. I didn’t want to have to do so, but he desperately needs rest. When I was bound to the Black Lion to get to Shiro, I felt so much of Keith’s quintessence there, too. He’d poured a great deal of it into the Black Lion, possibly so he could access the same teleportation power that Shiro used before in the battle against Zarkon.”

“So that’s how he got to us so fast,” Hunk said, awed. “He said it would take several vargas, but he was there in like, practically no time.”

“Yes. But… whatever happened between Shiro and Keith, beyond that wormhole — He is injured, badly, and he spent so much of his quintessence to get back to us. Even within the quintessence field, he was not regaining what he had lost. Not quickly enough. I had to intervene; we were close to losing him.”

Pidge joined them in the floor huddle, grasping Keith’s hand. “No. We’re not gonna lose him. We —” Her breath caught, unsure all of a sudden. “He came back to us, got into that fight with Lotor’s ships, then whatever happened when he went through that wormhole, he came _back_ , and then that fight in the quintessence field…”

“Has he had a break? At all?” Hunk asked no one in particular. “We evac-ed the Castle and stopped on that moon before we started our trip here, so —”

“No,” came the answer. They all looked up at Krolia, whose eyes were sad, and her little frown was so very familiar. “He hasn’t rested at all. He let the Black Lion autopilot when he could, but even then, he would be at Shiro’s side.”

Lance sighed, looked back down at his friend. The man to whom he was now the right hand. “Yeah. He would.” His hand hovered over the burn on Keith’s cheek, swallowing down that sick feeling in his stomach when he saw how close it was to his eye. “Shiro did this to him. That other Shiro. And he still —” He shook his head, closed his eyes. “God he’s such an idiot.”

Allura stood, trying her best to maintain her usual regal air, but she was tired, too. “We need to get him to the infirmary. Coran and I can see to his wounds.”

“I’ll take him,” Krolia announced, easily crouching down and collecting her son in her arms. Keith may have grown into a man in those strange two years, but his mother was full-blooded Galra, and she would always be the taller, bigger one of the two. “The rest of you, find Kolivan. He’ll lead you to quarters where you can clean up and rest.”

Eventually, the remaining three Paladins and Romelle — it surprised no one that the cosmic wolf trotted after Krolia, or perhaps, more likely, Keith — would split up. Pidge would go off to send a message to Matt, Hunk would investigate the kitchens for food, Romelle would follow him, and Lance would do a perimeter check before heading to his room for a long hot shower.

But for now, watching their Red Paladin being carried away like a child in his mother’s arms, knowing that they had been close to losing him — what would have happened, they wondered. Would he just fade away, like Shiro did? Would he leave a body behind? Would they have the chance to say goodbye? What would they tell Shiro? — they held each other in a little huddle, Romelle with Pidge in her arms and the boys on either side of her.

And in that quiet, she said, “They love each other. They won’t let each other go.”

 

 

Shiro came awake slowly, sluggishly. He took stock: a soft bed beneath him, a warm blanket over him, a pillow for his head. Wherever he was, the lights were pleasantly dim enough that he couldn’t feel it on his skin. It gave him the comfort to slowly open his eyes, to a plain, dark ceiling.

For a few moments, he did nothing except breathe. Let his chest expand as his lungs filled, deflate as he exhaled. He listened to the thudding of his heart, a sound he may never take for granted ever again. His last memory was of the safety of Keith’s arms, of that rare little smile, of _“We’re glad you’re back.”_

All the memories before that were… jumbled. Hazy. Some shrouded in the endless stars of the astral plane, others pin-sharp but detached: his but not his. There was sadness when he thought about the one empty room on board the Castle of Lions, anger at the way he — not he — dismissed Keith’s concerns, undermined him. The look on Keith’s face had been unbearable, and Shiro could see him slowly becoming unmoored; ultimately, that led to his departure for the Blades. There was an odd sort of pride when it came to the Voltron Show, and a quiet happiness at playing a paladin in a game.

And then:

_“I’m not leaving here without you.”_

_“Shiro, please…”_

_“I love you.”_

Shiro bolted upright, so quickly his stomach did a loop, making his head go light. He nearly overbalanced, and he vaguely remembered that his arm was gone, but that didn’t matter. Not when — “Kei —”

“Shhh.”

He choked back the rest of that name — _“Hello, Keith”_ — and fell into a coughing fit that was both painful and gratifying, because his lungs _worked_. They filled and emptied and air scraped up and down his throat and for all that it _hurt_ , he was _alive_.

There were hands on him, large but elegant, clawed. One on his chest, the other rubbing up and down his back. Finally regaining control of his coughing fit, he breathed, just like he had before, and without thinking accepted the small cup of water that was handed to him. He drank, sipping carefully, letting the cold water soothe him before handing the cup back.

His eyes met with Krolia’s, and for a moment, he saw Keith in her high cheekbones, her sharp jawline, the stubborn upturn of her nose. For a moment, he couldn’t believe that anyone would doubt that they were mother and son. For a moment, he remembered that she was Keith’s _mother_ and that he had _hurt her son_.

“Where is he?” he croaked, tongue like a heavy wedge of sandpaper despite the cup of water. “Please. Please tell me he’s all right —”

“He’s here,” she said, and he felt his heart cleave in two at how kindly she said it, kindness he didn’t deserve. But wasn’t that where Keith got it from? Or was it both his parents, and that made Keith infinite in his kindness, because Keith wouldn’t stop at simply two-fold? “He’s resting, but he’s right here.”

She shifted, and there on a bed to his left lay the Red Paladin, angled up slightly on a mound of pillows. Someone — probably Krolia — had cleaned him up, his skin pale and clear in the low light and his hair falling soft around his head like a silken black halo. Shiro focused on how dark and long Keith’s lashes were, and there, below his right eye, red and angry, was a scar. Not a cut or a tear, but a _burn_.

A broken sob ripped its way out of Shiro’s throat, dislodging his heart, letting it fall. He wanted to screw his eyes shut, away from the sight of that burn, but he couldn’t. He wouldn’t, because he was the one who put it there.

“No, god no, _no_. I hurt him.” Something evil, something with claws like glass dug into his chest, piercing as it crushed, pulling another ugly, pathetic noise from him. “I _hurt_ _him_. What did I do? What did I _do_ to him?”

“Shiro, you need to calm down,” he heard her say. “You’ve just had surgery, you need to —”

“ _Tell me!_ ” he snarled, not daring to raise his voice, because his need to know was nothing compared to Keith’s need to recover. If he ever would. Swallowing, dialling his voice another notch down, he tried not to beg. “Please. Tell me what I did to him.”

Of the Paladins, only Shiro knew of Keith’s father. Cal Kogane, local firefighter who’d died when a burning building collapsed on him. He’d seen photographs: Keith had his father’s eyes, right down to how they crinkled in the corners when he laughed. And what he knew of Cal Kogane — the parts he saw intrinsically in Keith — was that he was a man of gentle demeanour, who asked for little but dreamed a lot. A practical man with practical skills, so practical that he taught his son those skills as soon as his baby hands were dexterous enough. A strong, quiet man with a strong, quiet code of honour.

Keith’s mother was a lot that Cal wasn’t. Their strengths were different, as was their quiet, though they shared that code of honour. Shiro always had the impression that Cal was gentle until the time came to act, but Krolia was only gentle with Keith and nothing, no one else. So it was perhaps expected that she would level him with a gaze made of steel, that she would expect him to meet it for as long as she demanded, before she would speak.

She took a breath, let it go, and then said slowly, “Three cracked ribs. Two broken. A fracture on his left hip. Bruises on his knees, his jaw, his left cheekbone. His back is just one giant bruise. A mild concussion. A dislocated shoulder that he popped back in himself, but it was violent enough to tear open the scar on that shoulder. I believe that was from his Trial?”

Somehow, Shiro managed to say, “Yes.” Because he’d been there when that happened. He’d dressed that wound himself. He’d held Keith when he’d cried, convinced that everyone would hate him, would want him to leave, that _Shiro_ would hate him because he had the blood of his tormentors running through his veins.

As if Shiro could ever hate him. Not when the litany of pain that Krolia just recited was borne of his own hands, bestowed upon the kindest soul he knew.

“And… and the scar,” Shiro murmured, not quite a question.

Krolia nodded. “A plasma burn. It’s clean. We take our blessings where they are given, Shiro.”

“Will he be okay?” he managed after heaving a relieved breath he wasn’t sure he was allowed. He’d known. He’d known that the burn was ultimately cosmetic, because he remembered waking to those eyes, both of them, bright and luminous violet like the unending galaxies they traversed together. Now he paid attention to the various monitors and devices that surrounded Keith, taking in blood pressure readings, temperature, listening to the slow, steady beep of a heart monitor. Keith always ran hotter, his resting heart rate lower than the others; the abnormal numbers didn’t worry Shiro as they should.

He watched as Krolia covered Keith’s hand — smaller than hers, but with the same long, elegant fingers — with her own, as her face softened, not enough to match her son at rest, but enough to make Shiro’s shattered heart stutter. “He will be,” she said, but her conviction was a brittle thing. “He needs as much rest as you do, and he did not require surgery.”

It was the second time she’d used that word, and it finally sunk in. Shiro looked at what was left of his right arm, and it was bandaged right up to and over the shoulder. It looked slightly diminished, as if he’d wasted away unevenly. He flexed, experimenting, and found that he had full rotational movement, could feel everything. For a moment, he felt himself taken by a sense of wonder.

“It’s all gone,” Krolia said, a small smile at his wide-eyed disbelief. “Every scrap of Galra tech. You’re fully yourself, now.” He gasped a breath, wanting to speak, to ask, but Krolia answered the unspoken. “One of the surgeons was Olkari. Nano-biotech is quite something. Used it to flush out your system, like saline. And your Green and Yellow Paladins are hard at work with that surgeon and the Alteans on your new arm.”

Shiro felt emotion rise up in him, hugging his lungs, constricting his throat. His eyes burned, and he couldn’t stop the first tear from falling even if he wanted to, rendered so stock still by everything. “All of it?”

“All of it.”

“I’m… I’m not a weapon anymore?”

Something crossed Krolia’s face that Shiro didn’t quite understand. Her eyes went wide, before they gentled into a kind of fondness, and it was a look he knew well. She clucked her tongue as she stood, turning her back on her only son. “Oh Shiro,” she said, pushing one hand through his hair, the other cupping his cheek to thumb away his tears. “You were never a weapon. You were only ever you. But I understand. The Galra, the Druids: they will never be able to touch you again.”

He didn’t know why he believed her, not when he only met her just now — or a few days ago, when he first laid eyes on the older, stronger, more beautiful than ever Keith — but he did. He believed her, and a ragged noise fell from him. Before he knew it he was encompassed by the taller Galra woman, face pressed into her shoulder as he wept, feeling her hand sweep over the shorter hairs on the back of his head to comfort him.

He couldn’t remember the last time anyone held him like this, as though he were a child. His grandfather, when he was a teenager, before he left for the Garrison. Vague memories of his mother before she and his father died. Suddenly he understood how and why Keith came back from his two-year journey so changed and seemingly whole. His grandfather had loved him deeply. In his own way, Keith, too, loved him, something that Shiro was coming to terms with, and the conclusion he was swiftly coming to was like a pair of clever hands picking up the pieces of his heart, carefully reassembling it, breathing life back into it.

But a mother. That was something else entirely. He didn’t really remember his own, not for so long now, but here was Keith’s.

She let him cry, and he let himself do so.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed before he felt himself run dry of tears, felt that enormous weight lift off his shoulders. Krolia did not once let go, did not say a word, and he was eternally grateful for that. For all her fire and fury, she was patient, just as her son was when it came to Shiro and only Shiro. Slowly, Shiro raised his head, pulling away from her, smiling for what felt like the first time in months — with this body, at least; he’d been dead for over a year otherwise. “Thank you, Krolia. For… god, I don’t know. Everything.”

Krolia smiled, a familiar thing. “Think nothing of it. You are what makes my son whole. All I ask is that you stop torturing yourself over everything that has happened. You and I both know that Keith would do exactly what he’d done all over again.”

“As many times as it takes,” Shiro found himself saying, a memory. His, not his, but true nonetheless.

“Mm. Sounds like something he’d say.”

They both looked over to where Keith lay. There was something incredibly soft and vulnerable in him, but he was so strong that he’d let that vulnerability show, back at the clone facility. He had all but torn his own heart out and laid it before Shiro, both the clone and the one who existed in the Black Lion’s astral plane. Shiro found himself believing that in every reality that existed, Keith loved him. It made him wonder what those other Shiros did in light of that love. He wondered if they made the same decision he was coming to.

“I love him,” he said, and the words were easy. The sound of them was pleasant to his ears, the shape of them comfortable in his mouth. This was how planets were formed: in the chaos of their birth, in the whirlwind of their spin, they came together and became whole and solid, and in the right conditions... He took a deep breath, and again: “I love him,” and there was light and life and everything worth fighting for. Living for.

Krolia wore a different smile now, but it was still familiar. On Keith, it would have come with a roll of the eyes, with _“You’re such an idiot.”_ His mother, however, nodded sagely instead. “I know.”

She moved, then. Slipped from between the two beds to the far side of Keith’s, and very carefully, she pushed it closer to Shiro’s, closer until the two beds were joined. Shiro wasn’t sure what to make of her actions: he’d just confessed to the mother of his best friend, his best friend who he loved more than as a brother, in ways that he was only just beginning to quantify despite the knowledge that he may never come to a final count. He expected a shovel talk, the part of him not delirious with joy terrified of explaining his intentions to a senior member of the Blade of Marmora.

“Um,” he managed, wide-eyed and dumbfounded. There was a shudder and a click, as if the beds were now properly joined together and there was no chance that they could drift apart and one of them would fall into the gap. “Krolia? What —”

“When we were in the quantum abyss, we both saw glimpses of the past, and the future,” she said, as if he hadn’t questioned her actions. “I saw enough of Keith’s past to know that his faith is well-earned when it comes to you. I also saw enough to understand why he calls for you in his sleep.”

Now that he was right next to him, Shiro could see that it wasn’t sedation that kept Keith away from the waking world. His breathing was steady and easy, and with every exhale there was that soft little sound that Shiro once labelled as a snore but that he now realized was — “Is he… purring?”

Krolia chuckled, a warm thing that constricted Shiro’s heart. Gods she loved her son so much, anyone could see it plain as day. “It would seem spending time with his other kind has brought out the more Galra parts of his character. Yes, he’s purring. That’s how you know he’s sleeping. Were he comatose or sedated, he would be silent.”

“Cats,” Shiro began, somewhat stupidly, “Cats… they say cats purr different frequencies depending on what they need. To comfort themselves, or others. And to, to help with healing?”

“Ah yes. Cal said something similar, back when Keith was born,” she said, perching herself carefully beside Keith on the bed, her hand immediately moving to comb through his hair. “He purred constantly. I was told kittens use purring to communicate or locate their parent, given they are born blind and deaf. But Keith purred because he was content, I think.” She was smiling at the memory. “Galra do make these vibrations to aid recovery, but it works better when they are close to one another, when the one in need isn’t purring alone. I believe you’d call it a… ‘puppy-pile’? Even though puppies are a completely different thing altogether.”

Before Shiro was aware of himself, he scooted closer to Keith, until the line of heat emanating from Keith’s body reached him. Then a little closer, so their arms brushed, close enough that he could take Keith’s hand in his own. “He was always alone,” he said, low like a confession. “He was hurting all the time, in so many ways, and he was always alone.”

“He has you now.”

“And you.”

They stared at each other, joined by their love for the man between them. Slowly, they smiled at each other, understanding.

“I should go check on the other Paladins,” she announced, sliding off the bed. “Romelle will be especially worried about her brother.”

Shiro blinked. “Brother?”

“She appears to have adopted him,” she shrugged. “I have no objections. That girl has lost enough. And watching Keith navigate having a sister is frankly very entertaining.”

That drew a bark of laughter from Shiro. The image was precious, that was certain. It was everything Keith deserved. The thought warmed him through, and Shiro found himself leaning in to nose at Keith’s hair, unable to contain the affection he felt for this man.

The purring intensified, but Keith remained asleep.

“Rest now, the both of you.” Krolia appeared next to Shiro, ruffling his forelock before kissing the top of his head. “Keep him close. He needs you as much as you need him.”

“We need each other,” he said, certain as mountains and oceans and the stars in the sky. There was nothing he could imagine being more sure of. _He loves me_ , he reminded himself. _And I love him_.

He didn’t hear Krolia leave, too absorbed in Keith, in his comforting warmth and the incessant rumbling that came from somewhere deep inside him. He tucked himself down, keeping Keith’s hand in his, their bodies aligned, and rested his cheek against Keith’s hair.

It was as soft as he’d always imagined.

In the silence of the room — bar the purring coming from one of them — they slept, and healed.

 

 

 


End file.
